Notes from the Break-out group discussion at the Conservation Science Meeting in Tucson on Viability:

Break-out Group #4: Facilitating the Viability Step

Challenge / Some suggested “remedies”
1. A difficulty everyone has is with getting a reasonable list of KEA’s and a first draft of the rating scale. /
  • The team leader or ranking scientist might develop a straw-man for the team to react to. Staring at a blank viability table can be a real “show stopper” for teams. Having some ideas already available for a team to look at can be really helpful. Or showing a reasonable amount of information from another similar project might be helpful. (Avoid showing a “Cadillac” treatment of this step, though.
  • Think carefully about the sequencing of this step in a workshop/large team setting. It might be best to develop the agreed upon list of targets in a team workshop setting and maybe discussing the types of things to consider when trying to get a handle on the viability of the targets. But don’t try to get the details done in a workshop. Assign thedetail work, calling experts and editing as “homework” to a small number of the scientific members of the team.
  • It makes good sense to vary the players involved with different steps and/or workshops. Don’t insist on the same players at every step/workshop. The target and viability step might be best for your scientific staff to dominate but the other steps might be best for your strategic conservation project and government relations, etc. staff to engage.
  • Respect and encourage constructive brainstorming and then use some kind of simple ranking process to condense the KEA’s to some reasonable number. But do limit the time on this process, especially when doing the first target’s viability. If you let the discussion go on ad-infinitum with the first one, it will encourage too much detail throughout.
  • Start with an overall discussion of the target and how it works. Avoid starting with threats. In this regard, it can be helpful to capture participants’ knowledge and terms in a simple ecological model before you worry about our terminology or boxes. This can prompt clearer thinking.

How do we control the proliferation of too much detail or really obscure KEA’s /
  • Team needs to keep being asked: Is it measurable? Is it something humans can do anything about?
  • Again, limit the amount of time you let teams go on with this step.

How do we deal with the confusion some teams have with the terminology? /
  • For the large group or workshop setting, create a posterwith the terminology and definitions on it. Leave a column with blank spaces and let people post their own synonyms on the poster if they want to do so. Or make this as a handout – again with a column for them to post their notes or synonyms on it.
  • Don’t emphasize terminology or filling in the boxes in the team and/or workshop process – rather encourage brainstorming without worrying about CAP tables, then use the outside time to clean and translate the ideas into their “proper” places (e.g. whether attribute or indicator). Adapt yourself, to some extent, to their language.
  • Working with community stakeholders, consider using their terms and keeping the process to the barest bones elements.

Size, condition, Landscape context trips some teams up /
  • Don’t worry about teams putting things in the right “boxes” here. Have Greg Low’s viability decision support tool/handout to give to the team members to help them with this. But most of all, just encourage teams to use these bins as places to store their observations andnot to worry obsessively whether the bins are absolutely accurate matches for their content.
  • TNC needs to make sure our materials are consistent on the definitions for these terms though.

Un-evenness of knowledge among targets /
  • This is to be expected. You don’t have to have, and in fact, almost never have the same knowledge about every target. Don’t force teams to fill in every cell as if they do have same level of knowledge about all their targets. Accept and document the unknowns.

Extracting information from reluctant experts /
  • If possible, consider going to your experts outside a team or workshop setting and interviewing them about the targets. Go to them with a set of carefully constructed questions and then sit at their feet and take notes.
  • If you are inviting experts to a workshop when you already have a “straw-dog” list of viability indicators that you want them to react to, it is better to give them the information before the workshop and even give them a call before the workshop to makes sure they won’t have any “visceral” reactions.
  • In general, if you are bringing experts together, give them something to read about the viability assessment and terminology before the workshop

Other tips: /
  • Communicate with an Efroymson coach when you are doing a CAP plan if possible. Even if they can’t help you directly during the planning process they can coach you by e-mail or phone. You can find a contact on Conserveonline CAP workspace.
  • Use the materials available on the Conserveonline CAP workspace. There are power point slide presentations, handouts, articles, sample KEA’s and soon a searchable data base of CAP projects (Con Pro) that can all help your process and your team’s understanding

In general! /
  • The leader of the conservation project for which you are developing the plan must be invested in the process. They need to be fully supportive and making sure that the product has real content – they can’t be absent from the planning process or see themselves as just process facilitators. Someone has to own the homework and follow-up to ensure that the information is captured and sorted.